“We live in the least-churched city in the U.S.”

by eric swanson on April 30, 2011

OK, how many times have we heard that line? And it doesn’t matter who says it…or where they live, we just nod in agreement. In the December 2010 edition of Men’s Health the editors published a list of the 100 most religious cities in the U.S.(see www.menshealth.com/metrogrades). Here’s how they came up with their findings: “We scoured the U.S. Census and the yellowpages (yellow.com) for places of worship per capita. Then we tallied up religious organizations (U.S. Census) and the number of volunteers who support these groups (VolunteeringinAmerica.gov). Finally we considered the amount of money donated to religious organizations (Bureau of Labor Statistics) and spent on religious books (Mediamark Research).” Here are the TOP TEN most religious cities

Colorado Springs, CO

Greensboro, NC

Oklahoma City, OK

Wichita, KS

Indianapolis, IN

Jacksonville, FL

Portland, OR

Birmingham, AL

Charlotte, NC

Little Rock, AR

Now for the list of the real least churched cities in the U.S.:

91. Miami, FL

92 Newark, NJ

93. Manchester, NH

94. Fargo, ND

95. Jersey City, NJ

96. Portland, ME (this may explain why so many in Portland Oregon think they are most unchurched…..)

97. Hartford, CT

98. Boston, MA

99. Providence, RI

100. Burlington, VT

Parenthetically, Dallas is the 17th most-churched city; Denver the 63rd most-churched; Lubbock, TX is the 89th most-churched (or the 12th least-churched) city in the U.S.